Tag Archives: NOAA Office for Ocean Management

State and federal officials joined members of the public in a roundtable conversation Monday night to discuss a draft of the nation’s first regional ocean plan. The Northeast Ocean Plan is significant because there are numerous federal agencies with jurisdiction over the Atlantic Ocean, and prior to its development, there had never been a good way for them to communicate with each other and those who live and work on the water, according to Portsmouth native John Williamson, a former commercial fisherman. Today, Williamson lives in Kennebunk, Maine, and works in ocean management. Members of the public who were at the meeting had concerns that the plan is redundant, and that federal agencies will not take their comments and opinions into account before the final document is published. Read the rest here 18:35

NILS STOLPE: The New England groundfish debacle (Part IV): Is cutting back harvest really the answer?

While it’s a fact that’s hardly ever acknowledged, the assumption in fisheries management is that if the population of a stock of fish isn’t at some arbitrary level, it’s because of too much fishing. Hence the term “overfished.” Hence the mandated knee jerk reaction of the fisheries managers to not enough fish; cut back on fishing. What of other factors? They don’t count. It’s all about fishing, because fishing is all that the managers can control; it’s their Maslow’s Hammer. When it comes to the oceans it seems as if it’s about all that the industry connected mega-foundations that support the anti-fishing ENGOs with hundreds of millions of dollars a year in “donations” are interested in controlling. Read the article here